An Oak of Righteousness

My grandpa died today.

I talked to my grandpa for the last time last week. It's a blessing to be able to say that because most of the time you don't know when you're talking to someone for the last time, and also because my family warned me it was possible he wouldn't be able to talk at all. They said he'd be able to hear me though.

And so I wrote up what I was going to say. Two pages of it. Very eloquent and clever and sweet. But as soon as my grandma said, "Thomas, somebody wants to talk to you" in that cute little flirty way she has always only ever used for him, and my grandpa's voice came through the phone, I dropped the papers onto the floor and started crying like I haven't done in a very, very long time. I just kept saying "I love you" to him over and over. "I love you I love you I'll tell a million stories about you for the rest of my life I love you."

I'm not a big crier. I get teary about soft stuff — videos of cats and dogs cuddling, commercials where kids' dreams come true, Pixar movies, romantic happily ever afters, powerful women I adore winning at sports — but I almost never cry because I'm sad or hurt or angry. Once a year, at most. I didn't cry when my mom died and I still haven't cried about my mom dying. I'm sure that's not a surprise; there wasn't a lot of safe, healthy emotional processing going on in my childhood home. Overwhelming emotions don't move easily through my brain and heart and body.

I've been watching Stacy watch me since my grandpa started hospice care. She has mastered the art of navigating my hard times. She never pushes me to talk, but is always ready when I do finally have something to say about my feelings. It happens at the most bonkers times, like during the middle of an episode of TV that we're binging, or when I'm in the shower, or at 4am. She mutes the TV, or braves the shower steam, or wipes the sleep from her eyes without complaint, turning herself toward me to listen with her whole body. And when I can't talk, and I just reach for her, she always reaches back.

Somehow she knew the tears were finally coming, because when I got off the phone with my grandpa and walked downstairs, she caught me at the bottom and held me up as I sobbed. I never recognize my brokenhearted voice. It sounds deep and raw and feral, nothing like the soft Southern accent that tickles the edge of all my words usually. Nothing like the goofy sounds I use when I'm pretending to do each of our cats' voices. Nothing like my stern lecture-y voice, or my animated hyperfixation voice, or my SPORTS TEAM VOICE ("REBOUND!!!!") There's no control to it, at all; it's a wild and awful sound.

Stacy is half my size, so I really do not know how she managed to keep me standing after I talked to my grandpa. How she held me up and held me close and ultimately maneuvered me into my office chair so she could wheel me into her arms. I am a fall risk, after all. The only words that came out of my mouth were "I'm sad I'm sad I'm so so so sad" over and over, and she said she knew, and it was okay, and of course, and of course, and he loved you and he knew you loved him and it's okay it's okay.

When I say my grandpa was a Christian, a real Southern Christian, you'll think a certain thing, and I don't blame you. Jesus' PR team is the worst. Christianity, especially white Southern Christianity, is never rebounding from its current incarnation as a fascist cesspool of unconscionable bigotry. But my grandpa was a different kind of man. He was a Believer. A real Believer. And he was an avid Bible reader. The Apostle Paul wrote to the early Christian communities in Galatia that you'd be able to tell real followers of Christ from mouthy fakes by simply examining the fruit of the tree of their life. When my grandpa found Jesus, his tree bore nothing but love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. He never stopped growing, he never stopped learning. He prayed for me every single day.

"I love you," is what he said last week. "I've told you before and I'll tell you again: There's nothing you'll ever do that could make me not love you. I will love you forever." Which, when you believe in eternity like he did, is quite a promise. His speech was a little slurred but rich with affection and the wisdom of nearly a century of life lived on this earth. The last thing Tom Hogan said to me was, "You'll always have a home here."

"Here" as in "This house your grandmother and I built together." "Here" as in "The foothills of the Appalachian mountains." "Here" as in "God's kingdom." “Here” as in "My heart."

He died today, three days before his 88th birthday, at home, with his family. He taught me to walk, to swim, how to slice a watermelon without wasting any of the sweet fruit inside the rind, how to iron men's shirts, that an air compressor can be used to fix half of all household problems, that winning at cards isn't as fun as watching the people you love win at cards, and what it meant — truly — to be an oak of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

I loved him and I loved him and I will always, always love him.